There were men enough for the work in hand if the Company had only availed themselves of them. At the very moment when Mackenzie was making his voyages, a youth was finishing his education at the Charter House who had all the cleverness, force and intrepidity for the task that all desired to see accomplished. His name was David Thompson. The time having arrived when this youth should choose a career, his inclination turned to travel in the unknown quarters of the globe, and hoping that adventure of some sort would transpire for him in the north-west of the New World, he signed as one of the clerks of the Company, and set sail in 1794 for Fort Churchill. Arriving here, he found himself "cribbed, cabined and confined." Governor Colen and himself were little to their mutual liking, and still less of the same mind, as Thompson had an ardent, energetic temperament, and was with difficulty controlled. Yet during the summer of 1795, by reason of continuous pleadings, he obtained permission to set out on a tour to the west, and with an escort of one white clerk, an Irishman, and two Indians, he travelled to Athabasca, surveying the country as he went along. [Sidenote: David Thompson.] On his return from Athabasca, Thompson's term of service had expired, and he was encouraged to apply for employment with the Northmen. They desired to learn the position of their trading houses, chiefly with respect to the 49th parallel of latitude, which had become, since the treaty of 1792 with America, the boundary line between the possessions of the two countries. For several years Thompson continued in the service of the Company's rivals, surveying a considerable territory and drawing up charts and maps, which were sent to the partners at Fort William.[83] After Thompson came Simon Fraser and John Stuart, the names of both of whom are perpetuated in the rivers bearing their names to-day. Fraser is described by one of his associates as "an illiterate, ill-bred, fault-finding man, of jealous disposition, but ambitious and energetic, with considerable conscience, and in the main holding to honest convictions." Both these men bore a chief share in establishing trading posts on the other side of the Rocky Mountains, which are now associated with the Hudson's Bay Company. FOOTNOTES: [82] White Man's Lake.